Periodic Pingback: Men! To the theaters!

(Blogger’s note: every so often, I’ll run across something on the Internet that’s so fitting, so right, so awesome that I kick myself for not having put it on my blog first. Well, the least I can do is put it here after the fact. Thus, “Periodic Pingback,” a little taste of what I think is great but unfortunately didn’t have a hand in creating. Enjoy!)

I can’t write about spiritual revelations every day. They aren’t the only things happening in my life. ‘Cause at bottom, I’m just a regular guy. And sometimes a guy just needs … guy things.

Now, a lot of people would be reluctant to consider me an archetype of all things Masculine-American. I tend not to watch the NFL because I hate seeing players get crippled. I don’t lift weights much, or drink beer, or buy Maxim. And when it comes to movies … well, my tastes can be downright wimpy. Honest to goodness, I like Dances with Wolves, and Sense and Sensibility, and Hugh Grant films. And I don’t tend to go for shoot-’em-ups, for the same reason I’m not into the NFL: injury and death just aren’t fun for me to watch.

But there are exceptions. And when that exception is accompanied by a call to reassert my status as a dude … I’m pretty much there.

Such is the case with a movie coming out called The Expendables. You may have heard of it, as it stars almost every major action hero of the last thirty years: Sylvester Stallone (who also wrote and directed it), Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Randy Couture, Terry Crews and a few others I’m forgetting. A friend of mine and I were planning to go see it when it came out anyway. But now the stakes have been raised.

See, The Expendables hits theaters on August 13. The other major release that day is the Oprah-endorsed, Julia Roberts-starring New-Agey über-chick-flick Eat, Pray, Love. One of them is going to win the box office crown (who makes the most money) that weekend. And an enterprising and creative fellow named Garrison Dean has created a fan trailer for The Expendables, calling men to come out and support it or forever cede the multiplex to rampaging hordes of teen female vampirophiles and girl’s nights out.

It’s done very tongue-in-cheek and I laughed out loud when I saw it. (Which is more than I can say for the Motion Picture Association of America, who initially got YouTube to take it down for copyright reasons. Apparently Garrison and the MPAA have come to some sort of accommodation, as it’s back up. For now.) But at the same time, if you’re an American male, and the piece doesn’t get your blood pumping a little faster … you may want to check yourself, dig?

Anyway, here’s a link to the video in question. (Warning: NSFW, due to one cussword and a lot of folks getting shot, stabbed and/or blowed up.) Enjoy. And rest assured that on the afternoon of August 14, barring disaster, I’ll be there, standing up for my fellow guys.